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Recent studies of comets and cometary dust have confirmed the presence of biologically relevant organic molecules
along with clay minerals and water ice. It is also now well established by deuterium/hydrogen ratios that the CI1
carbonaceous meteorites contain indigenous extraterrestrial water. The evidence of extensive aqueous alteration of the
minerals in these meteorites led to the hypothesis that water-bearing asteroids or comets represent the parent bodies of
the CI1 (and perhaps CM2) carbonaceous meteorites. These meteorites have also been shown to possess a diverse array
of complex organics and chiral and morphological biomarkers. Stable isotope studies by numerous independent
investigators have conclusively established that the complex organics found in these meteorites are both indigenous and
extraterrestrial in nature. Although the origin of these organics is still unknown, some researchers have suggested that
they originated by unknown abiotic mechanisms and may have played a role in the delivery of chiral biomolecules and
the origin of life on Early Earth.
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N. Chandra Wickramasinghe, Janaki T. Wickramasinghe, Jamie Wallis, Richard B. Hoover, Alexei Yu. Rozanov, "Comets as parent bodies of CI1 carbonaceous meteorites and possible habitats of ice-microbes," Proc. SPIE 8521, Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology XV, 85210Q (13 November 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.975979